


Once Admitted to the Soul

by PSQQA



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: M/M, but it was intended as romantic and thus the ship tag it gets, musings on religion, the 8059 is real subtle and could be read as gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 14:05:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18235886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PSQQA/pseuds/PSQQA
Summary: There is no God — well, not the Catholic one at any rate — of that Gokudera is entirely certain. But belief and tradition are not the same, and when he runs from everything he knows, throwing away everything he was raised with, the traditions of the church are one of the sole comforts he is left with. The traditions and the music.





	Once Admitted to the Soul

**Author's Note:**

> This document has been sitting on various computers and back-up drives since something unholy like 2010. Unlike the many other KHR fic docs of that same era, this one was finished, it was just a matter of whether I liked it enough to post it and if I wanted to make any changes. I am, at this point, sick of looking for changes I'm not honestly going to make, and I do actually like it and want to put it out into the world.
> 
> There's a lot of my own feelings on religion in this (projecting complex emotions onto fictional characters? in my writing? it's more likely than you think), although I was raised in (largely the Russian tradition of) the Orthodox Church, not the Catholic one. Anything that reads as blatantly wrong to someone raised in Catholicism can thus be blamed on that. After all, if there weren't any differences between the two, I wouldn't have had to listen to my father attempt multiple times to explain The Great Schism to me.....
> 
> The full quote that lent itself to the title is from Edward Bulwer Lytton and reads, "Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies."

There is no God — well, not the Catholic one at any rate — of that Gokudera is entirely certain. He has zero interest in worshipping this being, in supplicating himself before his omnipotence. But belief and tradition are not the same, and when he runs from everything he knows, throwing away everything he was raised with, the traditions of the church are one of the sole comforts he is left with.

It takes a long time before he can bring himself to walk into one of the seemingly infinite number of churches that dot the Italian cityscape. He associates them, after all, with stuffiness, strict customs, starched suits, droning voices, dull and unquestioned morality. He is inquisitive by nature, with a scientific mind and a well of scepticism that never runs dry. His family’s fellow churchgoers had had no appreciation for these traits of his and he learned, eventually, to think of churches as places of silent obedience. 

And music.

Had it not been for the music, he thinks the Sunday morning services of his childhood would have been unbearable. But there was such beauty in the melodies of worship, and such depth of emotion. Even without the words, he could hear love and trust, the sense of standing before something incomprehensibly large and infinitely beautiful. He would think then of the universe, its vastness, its complexity, and it’s the closest he would ever come to being a believer.

So when he is ten and wretched and scraping through the streets of Naples, and he is entirely without music, he is drawn, helplessly and without choice, to the familiar strains, to that weighty emotion as it bears down upon him from around the corner. And when he slips inside, he finds himself surrounded by a familiarity that goes beyond the melodies: the space, the soft light of the candles, the faces and clothes of the people, the words of the priest. He finds he knows when to respond and what words to respond with, when to cross himself, when to look intently downwards and feign prayer. He finds years of ritual passively embedded within his mind, and with it he feels an unexpected surge of relief, of safety, of belonging. He hasn’t belonged in such a long time, hasn’t been part of anything lasting, anything communal, for years. He has no place, no purpose, nothing to bind him to anything or anyone, but he knows the motions of this place, the melodies, the immutable structure of worship, and he feels at ease for the first time since he decided his house was no longer a home.

The church recognizes a street brat when it sees one and he is offered food, a shower, and an open invitation to return. He warily accepts the first two, but not the latter. Perhaps he would have, eventually, but he is run out of town by the Neapolitan Families before he gets the chance to find out. They like ten-year-olds who are desperate enough for food, money, any small scraps that will keep them alive, that they will turn themselves into petty criminals, scapegoats, victims. They don’t like ten-year-olds who are desperate for recognition, who are given nothing and turn it into explosives, who know too much and ask too many questions, who are relentless and irrepressible, who would rather die a martyr than live a witless pawn. Cleverness and vigour are hard to control when coupled with ambition, and in youth they herald only danger for the future. They don’t want him, and they don’t want anyone else to have him either. 

It’s not until he hits Rome that he thinks to seek out another church. He stays away from the cathedrals and the Vatican and instead tries something smaller. Again, the familiarity strikes him immediately and he can almost physically feel himself relax. He doesn’t stick around long enough to know whether they would have offered him food or not, but the next week he picks a different church and does the same thing.

He doesn’t stay in Rome for very long. It’s too large and there are too many others like him, looking for a fleeting part of the eternal city. But the habit sticks, and when he feels overwhelmed and out of his depth, like he’s been running at 100% for far too long, he seeks out the pews and the prayers and the emotional palette of the music. For a short while he’ll stop running, he’ll stop thinking, he’ll stop trying to be a soldier and just let himself be a child. He feels more humility than humiliation, and the difference soothes something in his mind.

Eventually, he discovers that most churches are more than willing to offer him a meal and some shelter from the rain, and he’s much less likely to get kicked off of a church’s porch at night than anywhere else.

When he’s twelve, he finds himself in Florence just before Holy Week and takes shelter from one of the sudden spring showers under the crumbling arch of what must once have been a magnificent church. A nun opens the door to sweep out a cloud of dust just as he’s wiping his face with his sleeve. He ends up following her around the building with a bucket as she washes the dust off surfaces in preparation for the string of services to come. When he comes to the organ, he just stands there and stares as he is overcome with an odd feeling. He hasn’t been this close to an instrument since he ran away and now there’s one right there. It’s not quite the same as a piano, but he can see the similarities, and he thinks he can see where he would find familiar notes. Before he knows it, he’s set the bucket down and sat himself on the bench. It’s been over four years and his fingers are stiff, but they seem to remember as he starts picking his way through the Goldberg Variations.

He’s about halfway through the third variation when the Mother Superior marches in and demands to know what, in All the Good Graces of the Lord, is going on. It’s only then that he remembers where he is and that this is not what he is supposed to be doing. He finds his companion looking at him benevolently though as she answers, “It appears we’ve been given a little gift from God.”

He flushes and steps brusquely away from the organ. He feels something on his face and reaches up to find a stray tear. It’s been years since he touched a piano, since there was any music but the snatches heard from houses, shops, restaurants; nothing produced by his fingers, with his touch and his feelings to it. It seems the moment has overwhelmed some part of him, the part of him that has missed the limitless depth of music, and aches for it with a heartrending desire. 

He picks up the pail of water and stares resolutely at anything but the organ. He is embarrassed at his slip of emotion, and he refuses to let on to the crack it has left in the veneer of his irreverence. The nun smiles indulgently at him, assures the Mother Superior that there is nothing to worry about, and returns the two of them to their task.

After a hot meal and a shower, and with new, dry clothes on his back and a jacket for other rainy days, he is standing on the stoop before the church as his nun says her goodbyes. She kisses his forehead and says, “God has granted you a gift, child, it would be a sad thing to see it wasted. Take care of yourself, and return to us if you are in need of shelter, music, or God. You will always be welcome.”

He does not return, but the sound of his music echoes through his mind and brings a vivid colour to that memory that easily outshines the dimness of any other from those years, and when he stands in Florence ten years later, the morning after Palm Sunday, it springs glaringly to mind, accompanied by a fondness that until recently would not have survived the stranglehold of lingering desperation.

“I’ve got somewhere I need to go,” he says, as he digs through his belongings for his cross. He has a number of them as accessories, bought in Japan at varying levels of cheapness, and worn with a gleefully rebellious sort of sacrilege, but this one is expensive, and proper, and worn only at appropriate times, and therefore, of late, not at all. But he finds it again now, and when he puts it around his neck, some childlike part of him is found again. He feels comfort and acceptance and humility in the weight around his neck. 

“What? Where? I didn’t think we had anything to do today,” Yamamoto, barely awake and clearly confused, asks, and then switches gears immediately and laughs, as he so easily does. “Never mind. I’ll come with you. You keep saying I need to see more of Italy, right?”

Gokudera scowls, but as Yamamoto falls into step beside him, his companionship weighs on him with the same comfort, acceptance, and humility as the cross around his neck, although the familiarity lies in adulthood, not childhood. It's an unexpectedly pleasant convergence of these two aspects of his life, so he allows it, despite the trip’s nature.

The walk to the church is spent in silence and Yamamoto seems to catch onto the fact that this visit is a personal one, and likely tied to the closely guarded years of wandering Gokudera so rarely speaks of. He sends wary glances his way, clearly looking for signs of hurt or anger, an unpleasant memory, unfinished business, all those things that turned Gokudera into the boy he met in Japan, and have continued to haunt the man Gokudera is now. But there is none of that, not today, not when Gokudera looks upon the arch he once huddled under. It is no longer crumbling. Good fortune must have found this place over the past decade same as it had found Gokudera, although it certainly isn’t anywhere near so resplendent as the more central churches.

Yamamoto is noticeably less wary now, though certainly more confused, but he follows Gokudera silently into the church, and observes his actions closely. Gokudera raps his hand as he tries to copy the sign of the cross. “Don’t bother,” he says. “It means nothing to you.”It’s close to lunchtime now, and the rites of Holy Monday have come to a pause. A nun approaches them, and asks if they wish to enquire about services. Gokudera shakes his head apologetically and asks if he may speak to the Mother Superior. Puzzled, she shows them the way. The Mother Superior is the same woman from ten years ago, and she clearly does not recognize Gokudera. She is surprised by his request, but sees no harm in it. She has the same nun who greeted them guide them to the organ, where she stands hesitantly, unsure of what to expect. Yamamoto is similarly bemused, having caught on to the confusion of the nuns despite his dismal Italian. But there is an eager curiosity in his eyes as Gokudera sits himself down at the organ.

The music comes more easily now, his fingers practiced and smooth again, his maturity allowing for a more subtle and layered interpretation. The melodic and technical complexities of Bach engage both the mathematical and musical inclinations of his mind, and the addition of personality and humanity by his fingers brings him more joy than he is willing to admit to even his closest of friends, although he’s pretty sure it’s there for them to hear if they listen. He loses himself in the act of music just as quickly now as he did then, but he is spared the interruption and gets to play the variations through to the end. 

When he looks up, there’s a third person watching him now, smiling just as fondly and indulgently as she did the first time she heard him play. This time he smiles back at her. 

“I am glad it is not shelter that brought you back,” she says, looking pointedly at his clothes, “and to see that you have taken care of yourself.”

“It was the kindness of friends,” he responds, “something you have seen much of as well, I’d wager.” He motions to indicate the generally improved look of the building.

She laughs in delight and then turns to smile at Yamamoto, who returns the smile entirely on instinct. “I wish all my urchins could find such friends,” she says to him. He knits his brow in confusion, clearly trying to parse the sentence, and Gokudera rolls his eyes and takes pity on him, translating her words for him.

Yamamoto beams at her then, and bows. “Thank you for taking care of my friend,” he says, slowly and not entirely surely, but well enough to be understood. “He is not always very good at taking care of himself.”

They smile at each other again, and then at Gokudera, who doesn’t entirely manage an indignant frown.

They end up staying for lunch, and Yamamoto gets on far too well with everyone for someone who barely speaks the language, but that hardly surprises Gokudera anymore. And besides, there is a contentment that sits comfortably in his stomach as he listens to the chattering around him.

On their way out he presses two cheques into his nun’s hands, one for the sisters’ needs, and one, he says, knowing she’ll understand, “for those in need of shelter, music, or God.” He lets her bless himself and Yamamoto both and send them on their way with a promise to drop by whenever they find themselves in Florence.

Gokudera is silent on the way back, but peacefully so, and Yamamoto, always more perceptive than anyone would guess him to be, seems content to leave him to his thoughts, speaking only when they are back at the hotel and Gokudera is pulling his cross back off again.

“I didn’t think you were religious,” he says and watches Gokudera carefully place the cross back in its box.

Gokudera pauses and remembers a small boy sitting at a large organ, the only colour in years of grey. 

“I’m not,” he says, “but I’m glad some people are.”

Yamamoto looks at him a second longer, then nods knowingly. “You should share your music more often, it makes people happy.”

Gokudera thinks of the morning he’s just had, of music mixed with laughter and the bright colour of memory; of long hair and loving eyes and strong fingers carefully guiding his own; of silence, solitude, and empty years; of family, friends, and fullness of heart, and he turns to Yamamoto with a smile.

“Perhaps I should.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
